


mid-youth crisis

by perihelion (mattratat)



Series: almost (sweet forgiveness) // an ienzo collection [2]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Character Study, Gen, PTSD, and also issues, post kh3, this time the in ienzo stands for introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-06-29 19:17:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19836796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mattratat/pseuds/perihelion
Summary: Ienzo talks to himself and he mourns. And maybe afterwards he can create something beautiful.





	mid-youth crisis

**Author's Note:**

> ok so ao3 user amberwing said something about ienzo "grieve[ing] for Zexion" in their comment on my last sad ienzo fic and dear god it felt like being hit by a 2 by 4 and suddenly this existed. amberwing im pouring this one for u 
> 
> also shoutout to [soup](https://twitter.com/spookysoupyy) for betaing once again!!!

It wasn’t like Ienzo  _ meant _ to start talking to himself. It had just sort of happened one day and spiraled out of his complete and total control. But that was okay, because Ienzo was used to being the backseat driver of his own life. 

“These gardens used to be beautiful,” he says softly now. Then again, everything he says these days is quiet. There isn’t the need to shout now. 

Even if he does want to raise his voice, to scream sometimes. He fights it back. That’s not, he knows, how real people act. 

“How real adults act,” he says, or maybe it’s just a thought, but it makes him cringe either way. 

At twenty, he’s surely an adult. He doesn’t feel like one. 

He wonders if any of them do. Or if there’s a scared, tired child in each of the grown-ups he knows. Maybe, someday, he’ll ask them. 

But not today, because today is for planting flowers. 

Well, not  _ all _ of today; there’s still work to do in the labs. The work is endless and he knows it will keep him up all night again. Ienzo doesn’t particularly mind this; he’s helping and that’s good. It means  _ he’s _ good or, at the very least, that he’s trying. 

But the next hour is for planting flowers. 

These gardens were a second home to him once. It’s why he’s out here now, even if the push and shove had come from Aeleus. He’d insisted that Ienzo get out of the labs for a little bit even though there was plenty of work to do, pushing a shovel into one of his hands and an armful of small, potted flowers in the other. 

He hadn’t told Ienzo where to plant them, but the blue color reminded him of this little nook, so it seemed as good a place as any. 

It was one of their small, desperate attempts to make the castle a home again. How could Ienzo have refused that? 

But it was hot out. And he wasn’t sure he deserved to feel at home here. 

It had been his home once, yes. 

“But you had another home, too,” Ienzo murmured, tucking long strands of hair behind his ear as he kneeled against the dirt. “If that could really be called a home.”

But, in a way, it had been. He’d grown up there, after all. He’d spent more time there than he had here. Twice as long as he’d ever spent with his parents. Instead of their faces, his memory only contained images of growing up under Xemnas’ watchful eye, yellow eyes either boring into his soul or not looking at him at all. 

Beyond that, though, is Master Ansem, Even, Aeleus, Dilan, Briag, even Xehanort. And those, he thinks, were happy memories. 

But then again, he’s sure that he knows what happiness is. Not yet. With time, he hopes to learn it, to understand it again. There was a difference, he knows, between true happiness and the empty, thoughtless echo of glee Zexion had derived from his experiments. 

Hopefully, he would learn what the difference was someday. He can, after all, be perfectly patient. 

And, along the way, maybe this place could become a home again. 

“I really need to plant these,” he murmured to himself, fingers ghosting over the dirt that had long settled in the abandoned garden. “But will they get enough sunlight out here?”

His memory was too hazy to tell him whether or not the plants they’d grown out here when he was young were  _ successful. _ All he could remember was that they’d been there, until one day they hadn’t. 

Until one day the world had collapsed around him and he’d stopped being Ienzo. 

The breeze prickled his skin, bringing him back from his thoughts. He sighs. He needs to get started. But it’s hard for him to change direction once a thought was stuck in his mind. 

“You’re Ienzo now,” he reminds himself. 

For a moment, the something a little like sadness pierces through his heart and his breath catches in his throat because he  _ knows _ this feel,  _ this _ he remembers better than any of the others and it does  _ not _ belong here. 

This is something like grief tugging at his newly minted heart and he doesn’t like it.

The statement, he reasons, holds no reason to grieve. He’s Ienzo again, a reason to celebrate, not mourn. And yet, his heart twists uncomfortably, and he stares at his hands, blue eyes wide. 

Is this… what missing something feels like?

But there’s nothing to miss. 

Except. 

_ Except.  _

Does he? He wonders. Does he miss Zexion? 

“Of course not,” he says, definitively. Zexion was a monster, after all. He hurt people and Ienzo… Ienzo didn’t want that. 

_ But you are him. He is  _ you, he thinks, or says aloud. He isn’t sure he can tell anymore, because his lips move the same, but sound falls empty on his ears; there was nothing louder than the sound of his blood rushing. 

“Of course not,” he says again, and he knows it’s aloud this time; it feels weaker in his throat. 

No. 

_ Maybe, _ his mind whispers, and he shudders. He doesn’t miss him,  _ he doesn’t. _ But sometimes, long after night has fallen and while the rest of the world sleeps soundly, he holds out the palms of his hands and waits for the slightest spark of magic crack between his fingers. But there’s nothing at all. 

Is it so bad to miss it? 

He wonders if perhaps he was a better Nobody, in the end. He’s not entirely sure he’s doing a passing job of this person thing, after all. But maybe that’s just because he hasn’t had the chance to learn yet. 

Anger flares through him and he considers why,, why not? Why shouldn’t he mourn Zexion?

“Because,” he tells himself, voice hoarse in his throat. “He was a terrible, terrible person who did terrible, terrible things.” 

_ But he’s you.  _

No. Not anymore. 

He’s Ienzo again, he thinks, and this time, it doesn’t hurt as much.

He’s Ienzo again and Ienzo, he thinks, has the potential to be good. 

“And it’s not like I’m not trying,” he reasons with himself, a new tangent as he twirls the stem of a dead flower between his nimble fingers. And he was right because he was trying  _ so hard. _ He was doing his best to help at all hours of the day; if he wasn’t researching Ansem’s notes on the replicas for Sora, then he was doing other tasks assigned to him by the King. Hell, he’d even helped the restoration committee out from time to time. He’s  _ trying.  _

He’s trying so  _ damn hard _ and the stutter of his heart reminds him that it still isn’t enough. It will never be enough. 

The shovel still lays beside him, discarded in the height of fear. 

This isn’t helping, he thinks, or says- what’s the difference, anyways?- and he picks up the shovel again. 

And he pushes it into the ground, the dirt giving easily to his hard shove. He blinked in surprise; he hadn’t been expecting it to be this simple. Then again, why had he been expecting anything at all? It wasn’t like he had any experience with gardening. 

He looks over to where he’d set the potted flowers, smiling softly at the sight of them. Just looking at them was relaxing. They were beautiful, really. 

Something seemed to expand in his chest, tightening at the base of his throat, choking him. For once, the sensation didn’t bother him. It didn’t send him into a panic, he didn’t throw his own hands around his neck to make sure there was nothing there but a scar. 

No, he simply took a deep breath, feeling the air in his lungs as the wind rustled the flower petals. 

He needs to get started if he wants to plant them all and get back to work soon. And the flowers need to be in the ground if he wants them to grow, to live. It was a wonderful feeling, realizing that he was helping life grow, instead of taking it. 

He plants the first flower. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> im just constantly crying about ienzo 
> 
> pls comment/kudos if u enjoyed (lik if u cri3d lkasjhdfjvk) and talk to me more about ienzo here or on [twitter!!](https://twitter.com/vanitashours)
> 
> have a great day!


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